Born Ojibway, Richard Wagamese was lost to his roots as a teenager but was reborn to his culture as an adult. Generous in spirit, Runaway Dreams amounts to an autobiography in fifty poem/chapters, not a chronological account but rather a moving back and forth through the journeys, both inner and outer, that Wagamese has taken.
Wagamese is not sentimental about being "Injun"; (his term). He is realistic about East Hastings squalor and the challenges faced by First Nations communities. He writes of the scars and wounds that will never be completely erased. But the overwhelming impression is not one of bitterness but of gratitude and awe.

Words such as "love, discovery, shadow, transcend, song, dancing, heartbeat, purify and wound, the circle of wholeness"; have been so over-used in writing about the "healing journey"; that they are losing their power. Soon these words will turn up in advertisements for spas, chocolate and all-inclusive vacations.

Wagamese gets away with using them because of the particularity of his story and his response. His apparent lack of egoistic "my story"; telling includes fetching phrases such as "the sudden spray of heron from a tree,"; "streak of an owl flays back the skin of night"; and "loon call wobbles.";
At times the repeated use of words like "honour"; risk becoming banal but he surmounts that because of his raw honesty, a stance of awe, and his sly humour. His elders' tales have a subtle rather than a ha-ha, funniness.

Without being self-deprecating, Wagamese tells of his own fumbling efforts to become a "reborn Injun"; and the way tribal humour was used to deflate him. He tells on himself as "warrior"; now being the one who brings in the firewood and plants annual bedding plants.

There are Trickster stories, grandfather stories and spiritual rhetoric. Some of the poems contain sections that are reminiscent of the teachings of medieval mystics such as Meister Eckhart. It's a universal language, not limited to medieval Christians or to indigenous spirituality.

"Nothing is truly separate. Every one and every thing carries within it the spark of Creation and exists on the sacred breath of that Creation.";

This is spiritual writing in the best sense of the word: inviting, connecting, gracious about sorrow and sorrowful in the right places. In reference to a Gospel account of "Jesus wept,"; Wagamese confesses his gratitude for pain, "and salvation that comes/ with the acceptance of it/ when you learn to hold it/ you can learn to let it go/ it's how an Indian prays.";

The land is powerfully present. "Geographies become us when we inhabit them enough."; Wagamese now lives near Kamloops in a whitey suburb, and gazes lovingly at the terrain. On the land, "harmony happens on it own.";

"when you open your eyes there's
nothing before you but the land
and its absolute stillness there's the sound of wind and water
and as you push to hear it you
discover that you really have to really
want to it doesn't just come to you
you have to crave it, yearn for it
ache for the luxuriant whisper...";

The poems in Runaway are introspective but not self-absorbed, intimate, nature imbued, respectful and reverent.

Along with love poems to his wife and his geolocale, Wagamese, 55-year-old, speaks with compassion about the confused 17-year-old runaway he was.

Foster care and adoption, residential school, urban squalor and abuse are part of the story and not disavowed.
"My skin is broken territory and my heart went along for the ride."; But now, he values the small ceremonies, like standing at the sink doing dishes. "I am older now and quiet feels better on the bones than noise and the only fight in me is the struggle to maintain it all, to keep it close to my chest ... never thought I'd see that."; 978-1-55380-129-0

Poet and birdwatcher, Hannah Main -van der Kamp lives on the Upper Sunshine Coast, attentive to the absolute stillness in the sound of wind and water.

[BCBW 2011]